Tablets Part 8

BOOKS.

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select the more enjoyable; and like these are approached with diffidence, nor sought too familiarly nor too often, having the precedence only when friends tire. The most mannerly of companions, accessible at all times, in all moods, they frankly declare the author's mind, without giving offence. Like living friends they too have their voice and physiognomies, and their company is prized as old acquaintances. We seek them in our need of counsel or of amus.e.m.e.nt, without impertinence or apology, sure of having our claims allowed. A good book justifies our theory of personal supremacy, keeping this fresh in the memory and perennial. What were days without such fellows.h.i.+p? We were alone in the world without it. Nor does our faith falter though the secret we search for and do not find in them will not commit itself to literature, still we take up the new issue with the old expectation, and again and again, as we try our friends after many failures at conversation, believing this visit will be the favored hour and all will be told us. Nor do I know what book I can well spare, certainly none that has admitted me, though it be but for the moment and by the most oblique glimpse, into the mind and personality of its author; though few there are that prefer such friendly claim to one's regard, and satisfy expectation as he turns their leaves. Our favorites are few; since only what rises from the heart reaches it, being caught and carried on the tongues of men wheresoever love and letters journey.

Nor need we wonder at their scarcity or the value we set upon them; life, the essence of good letters as of friends.h.i.+p, being its own best biographer, the artist that portrays the persons and thoughts we are, and are becoming. And the most that even he can do, is but a chance stroke or two at this fine essence housed in the handsome dust, but too fugitive and coy to be caught and held fast for longer than the pa.s.sing glance; the master touching ever and retouching the picture he leaves unfinished.

"My life has been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and utter it."

I find books like persons more attractive as they are the more suggestive, more mythical and difficult to render at once to the senses, and enjoy them the more for this blending of nature with mind,--the text sparkling with the author's personality. What is thus implied is more gracefully delivered than if written literally; it piques then the fancy more and calls the higher gifts into play; and an author best serves me who, speaking alike to imagination and reason, arms with figures apt for occasions, thus pluming the genius for discourse. And the like may be said of the dictionaries: opened at hazard in lively moods, the columns become charged with thought, as if each word were blood-wise and fleshed with meaning. Again, books professing system and completeness are wont to be dry and unprofitable save for their facts and inferences; truth the flowing essence of things, the substance of being, accosting the mind most gracefully as a flowing form, fixed for the moment of pa.s.sing only in the mind's eye, and is studied to best advantage rather in books of biography and poetry than of history or science, wherein the personality is oftenest lost in abstractions of fact. Reading, like conversation, is an idealism most profitable as it calls imagination into play, and thus leads forth all other gifts.

Books of table-talk have this advantage over most others; being the best companions for the moment, they can be taken up and laid down without loss, and when sensible are best whetstones for the wits. With the essayists, the poets, books of letters and lives, one's library were always alive and inviting. Good for moments these are always good: we may open by chance, dip anywhere, read in any order, begin at the last paragraph and read backward as well; obvious consecutiveness being of less consequence. Nor do I find the logic the worse when thus seemingly broken and obscure, since each paragraph is a unit standing apart yet all related in the perspective which the reader commands. We could not spare from our galaxy the great essayists and moralists, Pliny, Plutarch, Xenophon, Plato, Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, Bacon, Sir Thomas Browne Cowley, Coleridge, and the rest; each delineating in his proper way that antique faith in man and the world, which being one and universal in essence, unites all mankind. We know the history of these pieces of life, these experiences recorded for us by their inspired authors, as if themselves were scribes of the spirit and committed it to letters for our especial benefit.

Any library is an attraction. And there is an indescribable delight--who has not felt it that deserves the name of scholar--in mousing at choice among the alcoves of antique book-shops especially, and finding the oldest of these sometimes newest of the new, fresher, more suggestive than the book just published and praised in the reviews. Nor is the pleasure scarcely less of cutting the leaves of the new volume, opening by preference at the end rather than t.i.tle-page, and seizing the author's conclusions at a glance. Very few books repay the reading in course. Nor can we excuse an author if his page does not tempt us to copy pa.s.sages into our common places, for quotation, proverbs, meditation, or other uses. A good book is fruitful of other books; it perpetuates its fame from age to age, and makes eras in the lives of its readers.

One must be rich in thought and character to owe nothing to books, though preparation is necessary to profitable reading; and the less reading is better than more;--book-struck men are of all readers least wise, however knowing or learned.

"Books cannot make the mind, Which we must bring apt to be set aright, Yet do they rectify it in that kind And touch it so as that they turn that way Where judgment lies. And though we may not find The certain place of truth, yet do they stay And entertain us near about the same, And give the soul the best delight that may Encheer it most, and make our spirits enflame To thoughts of glory and to worthy deeds."

Moreover for gifts, what so gracefully bestowed as fitting books conveying what no words of the giver could convey? Were the history of the few books of the heart published, what more enduring compliment would this confer on their authors! Perhaps the finest books have least fame and find but a few choice readers. 'Tis high praise bestowed on an author that his book is taken up with love and expectation, we coming to his page again and again without disappointment. To be enjoyable a book must be wholesome like nature, and flavored with the religion of wisdom.

Books of letters bring the reader nearest to the life and personality of the writer:

"For more than kisses letters mingle souls, For then friends absent meet."

Written with this advantage of perspective, the epistle is oftentimes more acceptable than were the interview, more discreet and opportune, since committing ourselves to the writing with a kind of reserved abandonment, if I may thus characterize our mood, which in conversation we might naturally overleap, we give that only in which another may modestly sympathize and share--so shading our egotism as to tell all about ourselves with the delicacy of self-respect without wounding that of others. Epistolary correspondence is the most difficult and delicate of all composition. And this perhaps accounts for the few books of the kind in our or any language; and the best of these mostly written by women who give themselves heartily to sentiment. One may think himself fortunate if the gift be his, and his experience find expression in his correspondence. Perhaps the diary has this advantage over letters; we make it our confidant committing to its leaves what we would not to another; sure of the sacred trust being kept for us. And the most interesting biographies are composed largely of these. The more autobiographical the more attractive. The keeping of a journal is an education. Let every one try his hand at one and begin young. If it get the best of his hours and an autobiography out of him, neither his time has been misspent nor has he lived in vain. A life worth living is worth recording. To what end lives any, if he fail of getting apparent order at least into it; living in a manner worthy of celebrity? Life were poor enough that does not organize the chaos and bring the joy of creation, p.r.o.nouncing it and all things good, excellence ever falling naturally into order and melody. Let one value above all literary fame the gift of seizing and portraying his privatest thought,--the homely furnitures and primogenitures,--and if but partially successful consider himself as having attained the fairest laurels the muse has to bestow. As the best fruits of the season fall latest and keep the longest, so those of a lifetime; and fortunate is he whose genius thus gathers his choicest samples housed carefully in a book for any who may relish their flavor.

One cannot be well read unless well seasoned in thought and experience.

Life makes the man. And he must have lived in all his gifts and become acclimated herein to profit by his readings. Living at the breadth of Shakspeare, the depth of Plato, the height of Christ, gives the mastery, or if not that, a worthy disciples.h.i.+p. Life alone divines life. We read as we live; the book being for us the deeper or the shallower as we are.

If read from the reason, it answers to the reason, but fails of finding imagination, the moral sentiment, the affections, fails of making valid its claims upon the deepest instincts of the heart,--those critics of inspiration and interpreters,--all books owing their credibility to the fact of being written from, and addressed to these, as eye-witnesses and sponsors. Mothers of our mothers we are ever at their teats. Most owe more to tradition than to culture or literature; the best of literature as of nurture, being still largely tinctured with tradition. Our debt to the Hebrew scriptures has been greater doubtless than to any literature hitherto accessible to us of the Saxon stock; greater than to all foreign literatures besides. And now the instincts prompt thoughtful minds as never before to explore the prime sources and drink freely at the fountains.

"Are mouldy records now the living springs, Whose healing waters slake the thirst within?

Oh! never yet hath mortal drank A draught restorative That well'd not from the depths of his own soul."

Very desirable it were since the gates of the East are now opening wide and giving the free commerce of mind with mind, to collect and compare the Bibles of the races for general circulation and careful reading. For still out of the Theban night rays the light of our day and blends with all our thinking and doing--China, Egypt, a.s.syria, Persia, Palestine, Greece, Rome, Britain--the christendom and world of to-day.

Why nibbling always where Ye nothing fresh can find Upon those rocks?

Lo! meadows green and fair!

Come pasture here your mind, Ye bleating flocks.

VII.

COUNSELS.

"Counsel is not so sacred a thing as praise, since the former is only useful among men, but the latter is for the most part reserved for the G.o.ds."--PYTHAGORAS.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative banner of a b.u.t.terfly among leaves]

COUNSELS.

I.--RELIGIOUS.

"Who shapes his G.o.dhead out of flesh or stone, Knows not a G.o.d; but he who lives like one."

Know, that seeing you, I divine your G.o.ds also. Why name them then one by one so sentimentally and so often? Being yours individually, so unmistakably in your image, surely none needs question or desire them. A thousand thanks if you will lisp never a syllable more about them. As I treat them civilly by my silence, why persist thus pertinaciously in thrusting their claims upon my attention and then questioning my piety for not christening them? O! rare respecting silence, deep is the religion that fathoms thine; speaking most reverently when deepest, and divining mysteries that none names devoutly. What if the sacred name were the silent syllable in the saint's devotions, and he

"One of the few, who in his town Honors all preachers, is his own?

Sermons ne'er hears, or not so many As leaves no time to practise any?-- Hears, ponders reverently, and then His practice preaches o'er again.

His parlor sermons rather are Those to the eye than to the ear; His prayers taking price and strength Not from their loudness nor their length: His murmurs have their music too, Ye mighty pipes, as well as you; Nor yields the n.o.blest nest Of warbling seraphim to the ears of love A choicer lesson, than the joyful breast Of some poor panting turtle dove."

One sometimes thinks silence for a century were most wors.h.i.+pful since speech babbles so badly. Has not harlequin in bands and book played out his part the world over?--the drawl of sacred names been heard till sacred names seem profane, and it were devout to fall into silence about them more eloquent than any speeches about sanct.i.ty? If infidelity, indifference, scepticism, sweep secretly the breadth and depths of Christendom, 'tis but the binding spell of these superst.i.tions about the name of One whom the love and admiration of all good men hold precious and will not let perish from love and remembrance.

What were Christ Jesus' life and gospel sweet, If not in loving hearts he fix his holy seat?

If one's life is not wors.h.i.+pful, no one cares for his professions. Piety is a sentiment: the more natural it is, the wholesomer. Nor is there piety where charity is wanting. "If one love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love G.o.d whom he hath not seen." None are deceived as to the spirit of their acquaintances: the instinct of every village, every home, intimates true character. We recognize goodness wherever we find it. 'Tis the same helpful influence, beautifying the meanest as the greatest service by its manners, doing most when least conscious, as if it did it not.

"A man's best things are nearest him, Lie at his feet; It is the distant and the dim That we are sick to greet."

Let us have unspoken creeds and these quick and operative. I wish mine to be so, for though it embosoms doctrines fit to s.h.i.+ne in words, it seems most becoming to publish truths thus vital by example rather, sentiments so private shrinking from the frost of distrust, the heat of controversy. Personal in their traits and colored with individual hues, they court the confidences of silence, and are unspeakable.

One needs but brighten his eyes to look deep into the depths of his heart and settle all disputes. Enlarge by a thought our view, exalt it by a sentiment, we find all men of our creed; or, far better, superior to party or creed. The uprise of an idea, perception of a principle, makes many one and inseparable. The liberal mind is of no sect; it shows to sects their departures from the ideal standard, and thus maintains pure religion in the world. But there are those whose minds, like the pupil of the eye, contract as the light increases. 'Tis a poor egotism that sees only its own image reflected in its vision. "Only as thou beest it thou seest it." How differently the different sects interpret the scriptures, each according to its light and training! I imagine our Bible is more loosely read, least understood of any book in the English tongue: conceive a fresh generation coming to its perusal as to a volume just issued in modern type from a popular bookstore and reviewed in the journals. How better acquit ourselves to the Bibles of the world than by fairly measuring our private convictions with their spirit and teachings? Let us first acquaint ourselves with these Records of Revelation before we claim for ours the merit of being the only inspired volume; ourselves the favored people--as if the Truth were a geographical resident dwelling in our neighborhood only.

When thou approachest to The One, Self from thyself thou first must free, Thy cloak duplicity cast clean aside, And in the Being's Being Be.

One does not like to disturb the faith of his neighbors, yet cannot speak truly on religious themes without touching the sensibilities of the weak, and sometimes wounding where he sought sympathy and support.

It takes a good man to speak tenderly of matters of faith and practice in which good people have been bred, their hearts being prompt to feel and act without questioning the head. Precious souls, if not overwise, or strong for reform; the weak saints being as formidable impediments as the strong sinners, both blocking the ways to amendment. But temperament, inborn tendencies, predispositions, determine one's cast of thinking or no-thinking, and go far to shape his religious opinions. Our instincts, faithfully drawn out and cherished by purity of life, lead to Theism as their flower and fruit. If swayed by the senses we are natural Pantheists, at best idolaters and unbelievers in the Personal Mind. The pa.s.sions prevailing, incline us to Atheism, or some superst.i.tion ending in scepticism, and indifference to all religious considerations.

"Some whom we call virtuous, are not so In their whole substance, but their virtues grow But in their humors, and at seasons show.

For when through tasteless, flat humility, In dough-baked men some harmlessness we see, 'Tis but his phlegm that's virtuous and not he.

So is the blood sometimes: whoever ran To danger unimportuned, he was then No better than a sanguine, virtuous man.

So cloistered men, who, on pretence of fear All contributions to this world forbear, Have virtue in melancholy, and only there.

Spiritual, choleric critics, who in all Religions find fault, and forgive no fall, Have through their zeal virtue but in their gall.

We're thus but parcel gilt, to gold we're grown When virtue is our soul's complexion-- Who knows his virtue's name or place has none."